Final Note on Beef and the Environment
epa02647495A street sign marks the end of the road in California, USA.
A reader challenges my assertion that the beef industry has an extremely heavy eco-footprint. He points out that his grandparents were cow farmers and that the beef industry’s (direct or indirect) economic contribution to the US economy is estimated at more than $2 trillion, employing 1 in 9 Americans.
OK, last time; I have exhausted my patience for this discussion. If you Google “beef environmental impact” you’ll come across more that a million articles on the subject that address the issues surrounding land use, the pumping and purifying of water, greenhouse gas contributions and pollution from the waste of the animals themselves, etc. It doesn’t matter whether your grandparents were Mr. and Mrs. Farmer John, or Zeus and Athena, it remains true that the relationship between beef and ecological degradation is among the most widely confirmed facts in environmental science.
Again, I’m done. I can’t understand why anyone who wishes to be taken seriously would want to even mention this let alone carry on about it, but I suppose there a lot of things I don’t understand. In any case, if you want to take it up with someone with unlimited appetite for wasting his time, that’s fine, but please take this elsewhere.
I would add in closing that the number of people employed in an industry have a limited effect on the argument for the validity of that industry. Societal pressures from different directions are constantly taking employment numbers out of one area and into another. Coal, of course, is the poster child for this. Mechanization, the relatively low price of natural gas, and environmental concerns are conspiring to drive this industry out of existence (thank God).
Now, how much hand-wringing do we need to do about this? How about the people making fax machines, audio cassettes, camera film, land-line telephones, and (soon) internal combustion engines? Zero. How much should we care about the jobs in the tobacco industry? Less than zero.
Let’s bid a fond adios to this one, OK?
Craig,
There may be a zillion articles written against the consumption of Beef,(although you seem to only cite the same Gidon Eshelarticle, article in different publications), however there are an equally number of studies and articles written by more objective advocates, scientists and environmentalists in favour of the industry.
There is always two sides to almost any issue, your blanket refusal to even interest yourself in the technologies and practices making one of the largest industries more environmentally positive, is disappointing.
Worse, your intolerant attitude confirms the general public’s growing belief that a large number of environmentalists are just close minded bigots, determined to inflict their ideologies and dogma on the rest of society.
the only explanation why you’ve closed your mind to any new information, especially rapidly technologies can’t be based on any scientific principle, since the very nature of science is a continual quest for new information.
You write : “greenhouse gas contributions and pollution from the waste of the animals themselves, etc” .
I reply, that’s no longer valid the emissions are not only being reduced, but reduced below the levels of the 19th or even 18th century. From the dawn of time animal waste is called manure, and life on earth would vert barren without manure !
Animal waste can be managed by methods way which are not only economically profitable, but environmentally beneficial.
But you’re not interested in learning about these major and dramatic developments in environmental technologies and practices, instead, you put your fingers in your ears and shout such information down.
The only explanation for such an attitude must lie in a passionate defense of a belief in the moral construct of vegetationism .
But you are right on one point, a ‘discussion’ requires the participants to listen to each other repectfully, it’s not a discussion if one participant just shouts the other down.
Since I was obviously mistaken in my belief that you would be interested in exploring how a major industry was achieving astonishing environmental improvements, there’s no point in continuing to engage you in a conversation on this subject.